Planned virtual machines

ABSTRACT

A planned virtual machine, for use in staging the construction of a virtual machine. Such a planned virtual machine may be used as part of a method for migrating virtual machines. The method may include creating a planned virtual machine based on a first realized virtual machine or a template, performing a configuration operation on the planned virtual machine, and converting the planned virtual machine to a second realized virtual machine. The configuration operation may comprise interaction with a virtualization platform managing the planned virtual machine and may be based on input provided by a user.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of prior application Ser.No. 13/177,209, filed Jul. 6, 2011, entitled “Planned Virtual Machines”,now allowed. The aforementioned application is incorporated herein byreference. This application is also related to U.S. application Ser. No.14/875,700, filed Oct. 6, 2015.

BACKGROUND

Virtualization technology enables creating software implementations ofphysical devices such as hardware platforms, storage devices, andnetwork resources. For example, certain types of virtual machines aresoftware implementations of hardware platforms (e.g., physical computingdevices) and can execute computer programs like the hardware platformsthey emulate. Such virtual machines can contain an operating system andcan run software applications written for the operating system.

A virtual machine can execute on a physical device, called a “host,”which is different from the physical device that the virtual machineemulates. Virtual machine technology also allows for multiple virtualmachines to share resources of the same host. Multiple virtual machinesare managed on the same host by a software layer, sometimes called a“virtualization platform,” whose function includes controlling howvirtual machines share resources of the host.

A benefit of using virtualization technology is that, with fewrestrictions, any host may be used to implement any virtual machine. Avirtual machine may be migrated from a source host to a target host toreduce load on the source host, to allow the source host to be shut downfor maintenance or for other reasons that might arise duringadministration of a computing system. Migrating a virtual machine maycomprise making available on the source host data defining the virtualmachine, which may be moved or copied from the source host. Though, thatdata might be obtained at the target host in other ways, such as byimporting it from a back up store, which is useful in disaster and errorrecovery. A virtual machine may be migrated offline, when it is notexecuting on a host, or online while it is executing on host. Onlinemigration of virtual machines is sometimes referred to as “live”migration.

Conventional approaches to virtual machine migration rely on templatesto represent virtual machines. The Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is astandard for virtual machine templates published by the DistributedManagement Task Force. Templates conforming to the OVF standard can beused to capture configuration data and other metadata associated with avirtual machine on a source host and help deploy the virtual machineonto a target host.

SUMMARY

A realized virtual machine may be created on a target host by using aplanned virtual machine to stage a new realized virtual machine on thetarget host, such as may occur during migration of a virtual machinefrom a source host to the target host. A planned virtual machine may berepresented by a structure that allows a user and/or a virtualizationplatform to interact with the planned virtual machine before it isrecognized by a virtualization platform as a realized virtual machinecapable of providing computing services. A user may interact with theplanned virtual machine to provide input during any stage of migrating avirtual machine. Input from the user may be used to control factors suchas the timing of the migration process and/or to resolve any errors thatmay arise during the migration process.

Accordingly, in some embodiments, a method for migrating a virtualmachine is provided. The method may comprise creating a planned virtualmachine based on a first realized virtual machine or a template (e.g.,an OVF file), performing a configuration operation on the plannedvirtual machine, and converting the planned virtual machine to a secondrealized virtual machine. The configuration operation may compriseinteraction with a virtualization platform managing the planned virtualmachine.

In some embodiments, a computer-readable storage medium is provided. Thecomputer-readable storage medium may store instructions that, whenexecuted by a processor, cause the processor to perform a methodcomprising creating a planned virtual machine. The method may furthercomprise validating the configuration of the planned virtual machine, inresponse to first input, and allocating a resource to the plannedvirtual machine, in response to second input.

In some embodiments, a system for data control is provided. The systemmay comprise a plurality of physical computing devices including a firstphysical computing device and a second physical computing device. Thesystem may also comprise a controller configured to create a plannedvirtual machine on the first physical computing device, coordinateonline migration of a realized virtual machine executing on the secondphysical computing device to the first physical computing device byusing the planned virtual machine, and interact differently with theplanned virtual machine and the realized virtual machine.

The foregoing is a non-limiting summary of the invention, which isdefined by the attached claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings are not intended to be drawn to scale. In thedrawings, each identical or nearly identical component that isillustrated in various figures is represented by a like numeral. Forpurposes of clarity, not every component may be labeled in everydrawing. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary system supporting planned virtual machines, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of components within a physical computingdevice supporting a realized virtual machine and a planned virtualmachine, in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 3a and 3b show a flowchart of an illustrative process for virtualmachine migration, in accordance with some embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIGS. 4a-4f illustrate a virtual machine migration example, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram generally illustrating an example of acomputer system that may be used in implementing aspects of the presentdisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The inventors have recognized and appreciated that greater utility canbe derived from computing resources in a computing environment thatsupports planned virtual machines. A realized virtual machine may be avirtual machine as is known in the art. A realized virtual machine, forexample, may be implemented on a virtualization platform. Applicationsor other software components may be loaded on the realized virtualmachine and may execute using resources supplied by the realized virtualmachine. The virtualization platform may maintain one or more datastructures defining the realized virtual machine, including suchinformation as resources assigned to the realized virtual machine.

A planned virtual machine may be represented with a structure like arealized virtual machine, but in such a way that a virtualizationplatform interacts differently with a planned virtual machine and arealized virtual machine. In particular, a planned virtual machine isnot recognized by a virtualization platform as a realized virtualmachine so that the virtualization platform does not attempt to executeany software applications on the planned virtual machine. For example,while a virtualization platform may allocate compute cycles to arealized virtual machine according to its scheduling algorithm, nocompute cycles are allocated to a planned virtual machine—unless it isconverted to a realized virtual machine.

Nonetheless, a planned virtual machine may be represented with astructure that allows for interaction with the planned virtual machine.The structure may store values of parameters that characterize arealized virtual machine such that a user, the virtualization platformor other components may manipulate these parameters. Further, avirtualization platform may interact with the planned virtual machine,such as by allocating resources to the planned virtual machine,validating the configuration of the planned virtual machine, and/orinitializing the planned virtual machine. Further, because the plannedvirtual machine may have a structure that mirrors an actual virtualmachine, the planned virtual machine may be converted simply to arealized virtual machine, using some or all of the same structure.

The inventors have recognized that conventional approaches to migratingvirtual machines rely either on the virtualization platform or on a userto control the migration process and have both appreciated theshortcomings of each of these types of approaches and recognized that,in various embodiments, some or all of these shortcomings may beovercome through the use of planned virtual machines.

The inventors have recognized that fully automated techniques that relyon a virtualization platform to control all stages of migrating avirtual machine from a source host to a target host have a high risk offailure because errors may occur during such an operation and thevirtualization platform may not be able to recover from these errors.One source of errors may be configuration differences between the sourceand target hosts and such configuration differences may not be known inadvance.

In one example of such an approach to migration, a virtualizationplatform may create a virtual machine template (e.g., an OVF file) froma realized virtual machine on a source host, pass the template to atarget host, and create and start a new realized virtual machine on thetarget host based on the template. However, due to one or moreconfiguration errors, the target host may not be able to process thereceived template. In this case, a user has to edit the OVF template andthe entire migration process has to start all over again, which isinefficient and time consuming.

On the other hand, manual techniques for controlling migration demand alot of time and effort from a user. For instance, in the case of avirtual machine move, a user may need to inspect the parameters of thetarget host, create a new realized virtual machine on the target host,modify the settings of the new realized virtual machine to match theparameters of the target host, move data associated with the existingrealized virtual machine to the target virtual machine, and remove theexisting realized virtual machine from the source host. Furthermore, itis up to the user to determine how to recover from any errors that mayoccur during any of the above-described steps.

The inventors have recognized and appreciated that providing a plannedvirtual machine may overcome some of the above-mentioned shortcomings ofconventional techniques for migrating realized virtual machines.However, not every embodiment addresses every one of these drawbacks,and some embodiments may not address any of them. As such, it should beappreciated that the invention is not limited to addressing all or anyof the above-discussed drawbacks of these conventional techniques.

A planned virtual machine may be integrated into the process ofmigrating a realized virtual machine from a source host and may be usedto stage a target virtual machine on the target host. Advantageously, aplanned virtual machine may allow for a user and/or the virtualizationplatform to interact with the planned virtual machine during themigration process and may allow the user and/or the virtualizationplatform to perform a configuration operation on the planned virtualmachine.

The planned virtual machine may be represented by a data structurestoring parameters of a realized virtual machine, but may present thedata structure to a virtualization platform so that it appears differentthan the same data structure used for a realized virtual machine. Inaccordance with some embodiments, the data structure may be presenteddifferently using different access privileges to these parameters than arealized virtual machine would. For instance, different accessprivileges may allow a user to change configuration parameters of aplanned virtual machine, but not allow the user to change correspondingconfiguration parameters of a realized virtual machine.

Allowing a user to interact with a planned virtual machine to perform aconfiguration operation on the planned virtual machine (e.g., change oneor more configuration parameters of the planned virtual machine) mayallow configuration errors to be avoided when the planned virtualmachine is subsequently converted to a realized virtual machine. Thiscapability may allow for the resolution of any errors arising in themigration process that the virtualization platform could not resolve onits own without user input.

For example, a realized virtual machine may be migrated from a sourcehost to a target host by first creating a planned virtual machine on thetarget host. A user may interact with the virtualization platform on thetarget host to perform a configuration operation on the planned virtualmachine. This operation may involve resolving errors in configurationparameters of the planned virtual machine, reserving resources for theplanned virtual machine on the target host, and/or moving data from thesource host to the target host. Afterward, the virtualization platformmay complete the migration by converting the planned virtual machineinto a realized virtual machine.

The inventors have appreciated that the above-described approach basedon planned virtual machines may allow an existing realized virtualmachine on a source host to continue executing while the new realizedvirtual machine is being staged as a planned virtual machine.Accordingly, a virtualization platform may perform a variety of actionsassociated with the planned virtual machine without affecting theexisting realized virtual machine. Examples of such actions includeallocating resources for the planned virtual machine on the targetsystem, synchronizing data between the existing realized virtual machineand the planned virtual machine, validating the configuration of theplanned virtual machine, initializing the planned virtual machine orcanceling the migration at any stage of the migration.

After this configuration is performed, the planned virtual machine maybe converted to a realized virtual machine and the source virtualmachine may be deactivated such that the target virtual machine replacesthe source virtual machine without disruption. Nonetheless, while theconfiguration is on-going, there is little risk that other componentsinteracting with the source virtual machine will experience an errorbecause of a confusion over which virtual machine, the source or target,should be performing operations. This capability may be particularlydesirable, for example, in a cluster computing environment in whichcomputing tasks are allocated to nodes, implemented by virtual machinesin which errors might occur if a cluster controller attempts to allocatea task to a target virtual machine in the process of being configured.

At the same time, the user may interact with the planned virtual machineat any stage of the migration. For instance, the user may resolve anyissues the virtualization platform is unable to resolve automatically,allocate resources for the planned virtual machine, and control thetiming of each stage of the migration.

A user may interact with the planned virtual machine in any of numerousways. In some embodiments, the user may interact with the plannedvirtual machine through a virtualization platform interacting with theplanned virtual machine. For instance, the user may interact with theplanned virtual machine by interacting with the virtualization platformthat created the planned virtual machine. That platform may providetools that allow a user, either directly or indirectly, to specifyparameters of a virtual machine. Such tools and other interfacesprovided by a virtualization platform are known in the art and may beapplied to planned virtual machines.

Planned virtual machines may be used in any suitable computingenvironment. For instance, planned virtual machines may be used in anycomputing environment in which realized virtual machines may be used. Inparticular, planned virtual machines may be used in computingenvironments that may be configured to support any type of virtualmachine, and may be of particular benefit in a platform that supportsmigration, such as moving, copying, backing up, and importing a realizedvirtual machine, performed either online (live) or offline.

A computing environment configured to support planned virtual machinesmay comprise one or more physical computing devices. A physicalcomputing device may be any computing device. In some embodiments, sucha computing device will be one or more servers. However, it should beappreciated that the form factor of the computing device is not criticalto the invention and the computing device may be or include any othersuitable device, such as an embedded computing device, a mobilecomputing device, a rack-mounted computing device and the like.

In some embodiments, the computing environment may comprise multiplephysical computing devices that may be interconnected. The physicalcomputing devices may be interconnected in any suitable way and may beinterconnected through any suitable network to form a computer cluster,a computing grid or any of numerous distributing computing systems. Onesuch computing environment that supports planned virtual machines isillustrated in FIG. 1. Though, in other embodiments, the computingenvironment may comprise a single physical computing device thatsupports planned virtual machines as planned virtual machines may beused to support operations other than migration between hosts and somemigrations (e.g., backup, import, and replication) may be defined withrespect to a single host.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary system 100 comprising servers 102, 112, and122 that may communicate with one another and with controller 140 vianetwork 130. Though, in this illustrative example, system 100 is shownto contain three servers and one controller, any suitable number ofservers and/or controllers may be used, as the number of servers and/orcontrollers is not a limitation of the present invention. For example,system 100 may be a computer cluster or a distributed computingenvironment each of which may comprise tens, hundreds, thousands, ortens of thousands of servers.

Network 130 may comprise, for example, the Internet, a LAN, a WAN,and/or any other wired or wireless network, or combination thereof. Asshown, servers 102, 112, and 122, and controller 140 may be connected tonetwork 130 via wired connections 132, 134, 136, and 138, respectively.Though, it should be recognized that the servers and the controller maybe connected to network 130 using any other means, as embodiments of theinvention are not limited in this respect.

A server may host any suitable number of realized virtual machines andany suitable number of planned virtual machines. A server may host zero,one, or more realized virtual machines and zero, one, or more plannedvirtual machines. The number of realized virtual machines and the numberof planned virtual machines hosted on a server or by a set of servers ina system, such as system 100, is not a limitation of the presentinvention. For instance, in the illustrated example, server 102 is shownto host realized virtual machines 104 and 106, server 112 is shown tohost realized virtual machine 114 and planned virtual machine 116, andserver 122 is shown to host planned virtual machines 124 and 126.Realized virtual machines and planned virtual machines are discussed ingreater detail below with reference to FIG. 2.

Any realized virtual machine hosted by a server in a computingenvironment, such as the environment of system 100, may be migrated.Migrating a realized virtual machine may comprise copying the realizedvirtual machine from a host server to one or more target servers, movingthe realized virtual machine from a host server to another server, andbacking up a realized virtual machine from the host server. Though itshould be appreciated, that migration of a realized virtual machine maycomprise other operations as are known in the art. For instance, arealized virtual machine may be imported from a backup copy as part ofan error recovery process.

It should be noted that, in some instances, a host server may also bethe target server, while in other instances a host server may be adifferent server than the target server. For example, a realized virtualmachine may be copied on the same server such that multiple copies of arealized virtual machine may be hosted on the same server.

In some embodiments, a planned virtual machine may be used to helpmigrate an existing realized virtual machine to a target server in orderto create a new realized virtual machine. A planned virtual machine maybe used to stage the new realized virtual machine on the target server.A planned virtual machine may be used to stage the new realized virtualmachine as part of any suitable type of migration and, for instance, maybe used to stage a new realized virtual machine as part of any of thepreviously-described types of migrations. Though, it should beappreciated that a planned virtual machine may be created for reasonsother than as part of a migration of a previously established realizedvirtual machine.

In the illustrative example of FIG. 1, realized virtual machine 106 maybe migrated from host server 102 to target server 112 and/or to targetserver 122. In this case, planned virtual machine 116 may be used tostage a new realized virtual machine on server 112 and planned virtualmachine 126 may be used to stage a new realized virtual machine onserver 122. In FIG. 1, this is illustrated by identical shading ofrealized virtual machine 106 and planned virtual machines 116 and 126.

As another example, realized virtual machine 114 may be migrated fromhost server 112 to target server 122. In this case, planned virtualmachine 124 may be used to stage a target realized virtual machine onserver 122, which is indicated by identical shading of realized virtualmachine 114 and planned virtual machine 124.

It should be recognized that in a computing environment, such as system100, not every migration may involve using planned virtual machines. Insome cases, every migration may involve using planned virtual machines.In other cases, some, but not all migrations may involve using plannedvirtual machines. Still in other cases, a computing environment maysupport planned virtual machines, but may not use planned virtualmachines as part of any migrations.

Any realized virtual machines and planned virtual machines hosted on aserver may be managed by a virtualization platform. A virtualizationplatform may manage any suitable number of realized virtual machines andany suitable number of planned virtual machines.

A virtualization platform may be a software layer that may managerealized and planned virtual machines on a server. Though, in someembodiments, a virtualization platform may be implemented in anysuitable way, such as by using combination of software and hardware, asthe invention is not limited in this respect.

The virtualization platform may execute on the server hosting therealized and planned virtual machines that the virtualization platformmay be managing. In the illustrative example of FIG. 1, realized virtualmachines 104 and 106 may be managed by virtualization platform 108,realized virtual machine 114 and planned virtual machine 116 may bemanaged by virtualization platform 118, and planned virtual machines 124and 126 may be managed by virtualization platform 128. Additionally, thevirtualization platform may be controlled from another physicalcomputing device communicatively coupled to the server hosting therealized and planned virtual machines. For instance, virtualizationplatform 108 may be controlled by controller 140.

A virtualization platform may manage realized and planned virtualmachines by interacting with them. A virtualization platform mayinteract with realized virtual machines differently than it may interactwith planned virtual machines. For instance, a virtualization platformmay allow for software (e.g., operating system, software applications)to execute on a realized virtual machine, but not on a planned virtualmachine.

A virtualization platform may manage planned and realized virtualmachines hosted on a server by managing the sharing of resources of theserver among the realized and planned virtual machines. A virtualizationplatform may control the allocation of resources to realized virtualmachines and planned virtual machines. A resource may be any of numerousphysical resources available on a physical computing device. Forinstance, a physical resource may be a memory resource, a networkresource, or a storage resource. Alternatively, a resource may be a hostresource, which is a resource represented to a virtual machine as aphysical resource by a virtualization platform. For instance, a hostresource may be implemented by executing a software module to simulate,possibly using underlying physical components, a resource such as, forexample, an Ethernet or a fibre channel switch. Additionally, thevirtualization platform controls when operations of the virtual machineare executed by the processor or processors of the host. Though itshould be recognized that a virtualization platform may manage thesharing of any other resources of a physical computing device known inthe art and is not limited to managing only the above-mentionedresources.

A virtualization platform may manage access to any realized and plannedvirtual machines hosted on a server. A virtualization platform mayprovide different levels of access to realized virtual machines andplanned virtual machines. For instance, a virtualization platform mayallow values of parameters that characterize a planned virtual machineto be modified, but may not allow values of the corresponding parametersthat characterize a realized virtual machine to be modified. Further,though the virtualization platform may allocate resources such as memoryor network connections to a planned virtual machine in the same way thatit allocates such resources to a realized virtual machine, the platformdoes not allocate processing time to a planned virtual machine.

A virtualization platform may manage at least a portion of a migration.A virtualization platform may manage a portion of a migration that maybe associated with the server on which the virtualization platform maybe managing realized and planned virtual machines. For instance, insystem 100, virtualization platform 108 may manage at least a portion ofany migration involving realized virtual machines 104 and 106, whilevirtualization platform 118 may manage at least a portion of anymigration involving realized virtual machine 114 and planned virtualmachine 116.

A migration may involve one or more virtualization platforms. When amigration is associated with one or more servers, virtualizationplatforms on each of these servers may be involved in the migration andmay coordinate their actions. For example, in a migration involving asource host (e.g., server 102) and a target host (e.g., server 112),virtualization platforms 108 and/or 118 may be involved in themigration. Such coordination may occur using techniques as is known inthe art or in any other suitable way.

A migration may be controlled in any of numerous ways. For instance, amigration may be controlled by a program executing on a physicalcomputing device, by a user, or by a combination thereof. For example, amigration may be controlled by a user and/or a physical computing deviceinteracting with any virtualization platforms associated with amigration. Controlling a migration may comprise controlling any stage ofa migration such as initiating, completing and/or aborting themigration.

In some embodiments, a user may interact with a virtualization platformassociated with a migration to control the migration. A user mayinteract with the virtualization platform by providing input to thevirtualization platform. A user may provide input to the virtualizationplatform directly, such as by entering instructions or parametersthrough a user interface, or indirectly, such as by taking an actionthat causes execution of a script or other tool. A user may provideinput in response to a prompt associated with the migration process,identify a source of input data or may provide input in any othersuitable way, whether or not prompted.

A user may interact with a virtualization platform through any suitablephysical computing device. In the example illustrated in FIG. 1, user150 may interact with any virtualization platform in system 100 throughcontroller 140. Though in some embodiments, user 150 may interact withone or more virtualization platforms associated with a migrationdirectly without controller 140. For instance, user 150 may interactdirectly with a virtualization platform through the server on which thevirtualization platform may be executing. For example, user 150 mayinteract with virtualization platform 128 through server 122. Still inother embodiments, a user may interact with virtualization platformsassociated with a migration operation using any suitable means, as theinvention is not limited in this respect.

A user may interact with virtualization platforms associated with amigration by providing input to the virtualization platform to performactions as part of the migration. In some instances, a user may provideinput to control the timing and flow of a migration. For example, a usermay indicate when a certain stage of a migration may start. A user mayinitiate a migration and/or may initiate a stage of the migration. Thisis described in greater detail with reference to FIG. 3. In someinstances, a user may provide input to address an error that may ariseduring the migration. The input may be used to correct an error or toabort the migration. For instance, a user may provide input to addressan error in a configuration parameter associated with the configurationof a planned virtual machine.

In some embodiments, controller 140 may be used to signal anyvirtualization platforms associated with a migration and may do so inresponse to user input. Though, in some cases, controller 140 may signalvirtualization platforms without user input.

Controller 140 may be used to coordinate a migration from a source host(e.g., server 102) to a target host (e.g., server 112) by signalingvirtualization platforms (e.g., 108 and 118, respectively) executing onthe source and target hosts. For example, controller 140 may signal avirtualization platform to create a planned virtual machine, to validatethe configuration of the planned virtual machine, and/or to allocateresources to the planned virtual machine. Additionally, controller 140may signal a virtualization platform to synchronize data between aplanned virtual machine managed by the platform and an existing realizedvirtual machine, initialize the planned virtual machine, convert theplanned virtual machine to a new realized virtual machine, and/or todelete the existing realized virtual machine.

Regardless of how a computing environment supporting a planned virtualmachine may be configured, such an environment may include a physicalcomputing device (e.g., servers 102, 112, and 122) that may host zero,one or more realized virtual machines and zero, one or more plannedvirtual machines. FIG. 2 illustrates an architecture of such a computingdevice.

In particular, FIG. 2 is an illustrative block diagram of hardware andsoftware components within computing device 200, which is shown ashosting realized virtual machine 202 and planned virtual machine 252.Computing device 200 may be any suitable computing device and, forinstance, may be server 112 shown in FIG. 1. In this case, realizedvirtual machine 202 may be realized virtual machine 114 and plannedvirtual machine 252 may be planned virtual machine 116. Though computingdevice 200 is shown as hosting one realized virtual machine and oneplanned virtual machine, this is not a limitation of the presentinvention as the computing device may host any suitable number ofrealized and/or planned virtual machines.

Computing device 200 comprises hardware components 240. Hardwarecomponents 240 may include any of numerous hardware components of aphysical computing device as is known in the art. For example, hardwarecomponents 240 may include CPU 242, memory 244, hard disk 246, andnetwork hardware components 248. Though hardware components 240 are notlimited by these examples and may include any other hardware componentsthat may be needed to support virtualization.

FIG. 2 also illustrates software components that may execute withincomputing device 200. In the embodiment illustrated, the softwarecomponents may be stored as processor-executable instructions andconfiguration parameters and, for instance, may be stored in memory 244or a disk 246 associated with CPU 242.

One example of a software component executing within computing device200 is virtualization platform 230. Virtualization platform may performany of numerous functions associated with virtual machines. Forinstance, virtualization platform 230 may manage realized and plannedvirtual machines (e.g., realized virtual machine 202 and planned virtualmachine 252). As another example, virtualization platform 230 mayperform any of numerous functions associated with migrating realizedvirtual machines.

Virtualization platform 230 may manage virtual machines at least in partby managing how virtual machines access and share hardware resources ofphysical computing device 200. For instance, virtualization platform 230may manage how virtual machines access memory, disk, processor and/ornetwork resources of computing device 200.

A virtualization platform may manage a virtual machine by communicatingwith the virtual machine and the hardware components of the hostcomputing device using techniques as are known in the art. For example,as illustrated in FIG. 2, virtualization platform 230 may communicatethrough communication interfaces of a virtual machine (e.g.,communication interfaces 220 and 270 of the realized and planned virtualmachines 202 and 252, respectively) and of hardware components 240.

Virtualization platform 230 may perform functions as part of migratingrealized virtual machines from/to computing device 200. For instance,virtualization platform may create and manage planned virtual machinesas part of a migration, allocate resources to planned virtual machinesand allow a user to interact with the planned virtual machine. The roleof a virtualization platform during a migration operation is describedin more detail below with reference to FIGS. 3a and 3 b.

Realized virtual machine 202 may comprise a number of softwarecomponents in addition to communication interface 220. For instance,realized virtual machine 202 may comprise an operating system 206 whichmay support execution of applications 204. Operating system 206 may beany suitable operating system and may support any of numerousapplications written for the operating system.

A realized virtual machine may use a virtualization platform (e.g.,platform 230) and hardware components 240 to execute operating system206, which, in turn, can manage execution of applications 204. Here,operating system 206 and applications 204 may be implemented usingtechniques as are known in the art.

A realized virtual machine may also comprise a configuration module 210,which may be implemented as a data structure stored in the memory ofphysical computing device 200 or in any other suitable location. In theexample of FIG. 2, configuration module 210 is illustrated as includingparameters 212, virtual devices 214, state parameter 216, and data 218.It should be appreciated that FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of acomputing device. Though in FIG. 2 a realized virtual machine is shownas comprising configuration module 210, in some embodiments,configuration module 210 and/or any information contained inconfiguration module 210 may be managed by the virtualization platform.In this case, the virtualization platform may pass any such informationto the realized virtual machine as needed.

Parameters 212 may include any suitable parameters that characterizerealized virtual machine 202. For instance, such parameters may includeparameters indicating a class type of the virtual machine. In thisexample, parameters 212 may include a class type parameter indicatingthat the class type of virtual machine 202 is the class type associatedwith a realized virtual machine. Parameters may include parametersassociated with hardware components 240. For instance, parameters may beassociated with disk, memory, network, processor and/or any othersuitable hardware components that are available for use by virtualmachine 202 or 252. As a specific example, parameters may indicate howthe virtual machine may use hardware components (e.g., virtual machineis allowed to use 8 GB of the 16 GB of memory or virtual machine shoulduse a certain network resource), and/or point to data (e.g., virtualmachine should write data to a file on a disk such as C:\MyFile.ext).These examples of parameters are merely illustrative and parameters 212and/or 262 may comprise any of other numerous parameters.

For example, parameters 212 may comprise parameters associated withaccess privileges. Access privilege parameters may indicate whichparameters and functions of the realized virtual machine may beaccessed. For instance, access privilege parameters may indicate whichparameters and/or functions of the realized virtual machine a user mayaccess and may read and/or write. As another example, access privilegeparameters may indicate which parameters and/or functions of therealized virtual machine a virtualization platform may access and mayread and/or write. In the illustrative example of FIG. 2, accessparameters may be set such that a user may not be able to editparameters 212, virtual devices 214 and/or data 218. This is indicatedwith shading of software components 212, 214, and 218.

State parameter 216 may indicate a state of the realized virtualmachine. The value of state parameter 216 may correspond to any suitablestate of a virtual machine as is known in the art, and, for example, maycorrespond to a state such as “initialized,” “started,” and/or“stopped.” In some embodiments, state parameter 216 may be changed byvirtualization platform 230. Though, in the illustrated example, stateinformation is shown as part of configuration module 210, it should beappreciated that FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of a computingsystem, and a computing system may not be implemented with thearchitecture illustrated. In some embodiments, for example, stateinformation may be tracked by the virtualization platform and providedto the realized virtual machine as necessary.

Virtual devices 214 may comprise any virtual devices that realizedvirtual machine 202 may use while executing operating system 206 and/orapplications 204. For instance, virtual devices 214 may comprise avirtual network device, virtual memory, virtual disk drives, etc.Virtual devices may, through a level of indirection provided byvirtualization platform 230, communicate with physical devices ofcomputing device 200. Though virtual devices are shown as part ofconfiguration module 210, in some embodiments, this implementationshould be understood to be illustrative rather than limiting. Virtualdevices, for example, may be managed by a virtualization platform suchas virtualization platform 230.

Data 218 may comprise any data used by realized virtual machine 202 forany suitable purpose. For instance, data 218 may be data accessed byapplications 204, operating system 206, and/or any other software moduleof virtual machine 202. Data 218 may be stored in any suitable way and,for example, may be stored in memory 244 or disk 246 of computing device200.

As is the case with a realized virtual machine, planned virtual machine252 may comprise a number of software components in addition to acommunication interface. For instance, planned virtual machine 252 maycomprise an operating system 256 which may support execution ofapplications 254. Operating system 256 may be any suitable operatingsystem and may support any of numerous applications written for theoperating system. In the illustrated example, operating system 256 maybe the same operating system as operating system 206 or may be adifferent operating system as the invention is not limited in thisrespect. Similarly, applications 254 may be the same applications asapplications 204 or they may be different applications.

A planned virtual machine may comprise software components such as anoperating system and applications that are written for the operatingsystem because those components may be loaded and available forexecution. However, a planned virtual machine does not execute suchsoftware components. For example, planned virtual machine 252 may notexecute operating system 256 or any of the applications 254 on computingdevice 200. In FIG. 2, this is indicated by a dashed line border onsoftware components 254 and 256. Though, it should be recognized that ifa planned virtual machine were converted to a realized virtual machine,then the realized virtual machine may execute software components suchas operating system 256 and any of applications 254.

A planned virtual machine may also comprise a configuration module 260,which includes parameters 262, virtual devices 264, state parameter 266,and data 268. Though, it should be appreciated that FIG. 2 may beregarded as schematically illustrating information that may be storedand that information need not be stored in a single module asillustrated. In this example, a planned virtual machine is shown ascomprising configuration module 260, in some embodiments, configurationmodule 260 and/or any information contained in configuration module 260may be managed by the virtualization platform. In this case, thevirtualization platform may pass any such information to the plannedvirtual machine as needed. In this example, configuration module 260 maybe implemented as a data structure that has the same format as a datastructure used to implement configuration module 210. Parameters 262 maybe the same parameters as parameters 212, but may have different values.For instance, parameters 262 may include parameters indicating a classtype of the virtual machine. In this example, parameters 262 may includea class type parameter indicating that the class type of virtual machine252 is the class type associated with a planned virtual machine. Though,it should be recognized that parameters 262 may be different fromparameters 212, as the invention is not limited in this respect.

Further, it should be appreciated that any suitable mechanism may beused to differentiate the planned virtual machine and the realizedvirtual machine. As an example of other ways the differences may bereflected, the interface to the planned virtual machine may bedifferent, may have different access control privileges or may be storedin a different way.

Parameters 262 may characterize planned virtual machine 252 so as toallow for a user to interact with the planned virtual machine. Forinstance, parameters 262 may include access privilege parameters thatmay allow a user and/or a virtualization platform to interact with theplanned virtual machine. In particular, access privileges may be setsuch that a user may access some parameters and/or functions of theplanned virtual machine and, for example, may be set such that a usercan edit parameters 262, virtual devices 214, and/or data 218.

Another way in which a planned virtual machine and a realized virtualmachine may be differentiated is through the states supported. Forexample, a planned virtual machine may not be put in some of the statesthat a realized virtual machine can support. For instance, a plannedvirtual machine may not be placed in a started or stopped state.Conversely, a realized virtual machine may not be put in some of thestates that a planned virtual machine may support. For instance, aplanned virtual machine may be put into an initialized state (whilebeing initialized as described below with reference to FIG. 3b ) or areplicating state. Accordingly, state parameter 266 may indicate whetherthe planned virtual machine is initialized or replicating.

Virtual devices 264 may comprise any virtual devices that plannedvirtual machine 252 may use while executing operating system 256 and/orapplications 254. Virtual devices 264 may comprise any of the virtualdevices 214 and may comprise virtual network devices, virtual storagedevices, etc. Though virtual devices of a planned virtual machine may beinitialized, they may not be used to move application data.

Data 268 may comprise any data used by planned virtual machine 252 forany suitable purpose. For instance, data 268 may be data accessed byapplications 254, operating system 256, and/or any other software moduleof virtual machine 252. Data 268 may be stored in any suitable way and,for example, may be stored in memory 244 or disk 246 of computing device200.

The structures for representing planned virtual machines as describedwith respect to FIG. 2, may allow for planned virtual machines to beused during a migration of a realized virtual machine. One suchmigration process is illustrated in FIGS. 3a and 3 b.

In particular, FIGS. 3a and 3b show a flowchart of an illustrativeprocess 300 for virtual machine migration. Process 300 may be adapted toany suitable type of virtual machine migration including moving arealized virtual machine from a source host to a target host, copying arealized virtual machine from a source host to a target host, backing upa realized virtual machine from a source host, and importing a realizedvirtual machine to a target host. Accordingly, though process 300 isdescribed below with respect to a migration comprising moving a realizedvirtual machine from a source host to a target host, this is not alimitation of the present invention as process 300 may be adapted toimplement any suitable type of migration.

Process 300 may execute on one or more physical computing devicesassociated with a migration. In some embodiments, acts of process 300may execute on the target host of a migration. For example, in the casewhen a realized virtual machine is moved, copied or imported onto atarget host, the target host may execute process 300. As a specificexample, server 112 may execute acts of process 300 as part of copyingrealized virtual machine 106 onto server 112. In some embodiments, someacts of process 300 may execute on the source host of a migration. Forexample, in the case when a realized virtual machine is moved, copied,or backed up from a source host, the source host may execute process300. As a specific example, server 102 may execute acts of process 300as part of copying realized virtual machine 106 onto server 112. In someembodiments, acts of process 300 may execute on a physical computingdevice controlling a migration, such as controller 140 described withreference to FIG. 1.

Process 300 may begin, in act 302, by receiving input indicating tomigrate a realized virtual machine from a first physical computingdevice (source host) to a second physical computing device (targethost). The first physical computing device may be any physical computingdevice capable of supporting realized virtual machines and may beconfigured in any suitable way and using any suitable combination ofhardware and software components. For instance, the first physicalcomputing device may host a virtualization platform configured to manageone or more realized virtual machines. For instance, the first physicalcomputing device may be any one of servers 102, 112, and 122, describedwith reference to FIG. 1 and/or may be configured as server 200described with reference to FIG. 2. Another example of a first physicalcomputing device is source host 400, illustrated in FIG. 4 a.

The second physical computing device may be any physical computingdevice capable of supporting realized and planned virtual machines andmay be configured in any suitable way. The second physical computingdevice may host a virtualization platform configured to manage one ormore realized virtual machines and/or one or more planned virtualmachines. For instance, the second physical computing device may be anyone of servers 102, 112, and 122, described with reference to FIG. 1and/or may be configured as server 200 described with reference to FIG.2. Another example of a second physical computing device is target host410, illustrated in FIG. 4 a.

The first and second physical computing devices may each have any ofnumerous resources. For example, each device may have network resources,storage resources, and/or memory resources (e.g., as illustrated in FIG.2). Other examples include processor resources (e.g., a processor or agraphical processing unit) and other resources such as one or morenon-uniform memory access (NUMA) nodes. In some instances, the devicesmay have the same resources, but in other instances the devices may nothave the same resources. Indeed, having the same resources (e.g., havingthe same amount of memory) is not a limitation of the present invention,as virtual machines may be migrated between physical computing deviceswith different resources. In some instances, in which the devices havethe same resource (e.g., each device may have a network connection tothe same network), parameters associated with the resource may havedifferent values. For instance, a network resource of the first physicalcomputing device may have a name parameter with value “Network 1,” whilea network resource of the second physical computing device may have aname parameter with value “Network 2.” Alternatively or additionally, atarget host may be configured differently than a source host, such that,when a virtual machine is migrated, different parameters are used. Evenif, for example, a source and target both have a “Network 1” and a“Network 2,” because of requirements of other processes alreadyexecuting on the target, a virtual machine, once migrated, may beassigned to use “Network 2” even though it was assigned to use “Network1” on the source host.

Network resources of a device may comprise any of numerous networkresources known in the art such as network cards, interfaces and/ordevices, their attributes, and any associated software components andconfiguration parameters for managing these and any other networkresources. For instance, source host 400 comprises network configurationparameters including a network name parameter “Name” whose value is“Network1” and a network connection type parameter “Connection” whosevalue is “Internet.” Target host 410 comprises a network name parameter“Name” whose value is “Network2” and a network connection type parameter“Connection” whose value is “Internet.”

Storage and memory resources may comprise any of numerouscomputer-readable storage media such as a hard-drive disks, USB keys,CD-ROM disks, DVD-ROM disks, RAM, and ROM. Computer-readable storagemedia are discussed in greater detail below. Additionally storage andmemory resources may comprise any data stored on computer-readablestorage media, any attributes of these media, and any associatedsoftware components and configuration parameters for managing thesemedia.

Examples of storage resources of a device include any files indexed byan operating system of a device and any configuration parameters neededto index these files. For instance, source host 400 comprises aparameter “Path” whose value is “C:\MyFile.ext” and data stored in thefile such as “ABC . . . .” Though, it should be recognized that storageresources are not limited to these examples.

Examples of memory resources of a device include any data stored in amemory of the device and/or any attributes of the memory. For instance,source host 400 comprises a memory attribute “Size” whose value is “8GB” and data stored in memory including “123 . . . .” Though it shouldbe recognized memory resources are not limited to these examples.

In act 302 of process 300, input indicating to migrate a realizedvirtual machine may be provided automatically by a computer or manuallyby a user. In the illustrative example shown in FIG. 1, for example,controller 140 may provide an indication to initiate a migration or user150 may provide an indication to initiate a migration.

Regardless of how the input request is provided, a planned virtualmachine may be created on the second computing device in response to thereceived input, in act 304. The planned virtual machine may be createdin any suitable way by any suitable component, such as by avirtualization platform executing on the second computing device or atool integrated with the virtualization platform. As one example,virtualization platform 118 may create planned virtual machine 116 inresponse to a request to migrate realized virtual machine 106 fromserver 102 to server 112.

Creating a planned virtual machine may comprise instantiating a datastructure representing the planned virtual machine. The data structuremay store parameters whose values may characterize the planned virtualmachine. For instance, the data structure may store a class typeparameter indicating a class type associated with the planned virtualmachine. This may enable a virtualization platform to interactdifferently with the planned virtual machine than it would with arealized virtual machine.

As another example, a user may wish to copy the realized virtual machinehosted on source host 400 to target host 410, as shown in FIG. 4a . Therealized virtual machine on source host 400 may be configured to use 8gigabytes (GB) of memory, connect to the file C:\MyFile.ext to storedisk contents, and use the network named “Network1” for connectivity tothe Internet. To this end, the user may provide input to thevirtualization platform executing on host 410 indicating to copy thedata structure representing the realized virtual machine from host 400to host 410. In response to the request, the virtualization platform onhost 410 may create a planned virtual machine on host 410 to stage themigration. The virtualization platform on host 410 may create theplanned virtual machine by instantiating a data structure representingthe planned virtual machine and may assign a class type associated withthe planned virtual machine to the data structure.

Creating a planned virtual machine may comprise setting parametersassociated with the planned virtual machine. The parameters may beconfiguration parameters or any other parameters associated with aplanned virtual machine. Parameters may be set automatically by thevirtualization platform.

In some cases, parameters of the planned virtual machine may be setautomatically based on a realized virtual machine. For instance,parameters of the planned virtual machine may be set based on theparameters of the realized virtual machine being migrated. As a specificexample, parameters of the planned virtual machine on host 412, shown inFIG. 4b , may be set based on the parameters of the realized virtualmachine on source host 400. In particular, the planned virtual machineis configured to use 8 GB of memory and to connect to file C:\MyFile.extto store data on disk.

Additionally or alternatively, parameters of the planned virtual machinemay be set based on parameters of the second computing device.Parameters of the planned virtual machine may be set based on therealized virtual machine and then modified based on parameters of thesecond computing device or may be set based on the resources of thesecond computing device directly. For instance, as shown in FIG. 4b , anetwork resource of the target host 412 includes a name parameter “Name”whose value is “Network2.” Accordingly, the planned virtual machineconfiguration parameter “Network” is set to value “Network2,” ratherthan “Network1,” which is the value of the same parameter in theconfiguration of the realized virtual machine on host 400. Parametervalues may be set automatically, such as by the virtualization platform,or manually, such as in response to user input, or partially automated,such as through the use of a tool that operates in response to userinput.

Next, in acts 308-312, the configuration of the planned virtual machinemay be validated. Validating the planned virtual machine configurationmay comprise determining whether there are any errors in the plannedvirtual machine parameters and may also comprise addressing the presenceof any such errors based on user input.

Accordingly, in act 308, it may be determined whether there are anyerrors in the planned virtual machine parameters. The presence ofparameter errors may be determined in any suitable way and is not alimitation on the present invention. Errors may be detected usingtechniques as are known in the art. For instance, the presence ofparameter errors may be determined based at least in part on the valuesof parameters of the planned virtual machine. As an example, validationmay entail determining whether the parameters of a planned virtualmachine indicate usage of resources that are not available on the targethost. Parameters may specify unavailable resources because they identifyresources that simply are not present, such as by calling for morememory than is installed on the target host or specifying as a networkconnection that does not exist. Alternatively or additionally,parameters may specify resource usage that is inconsistent with a policyor operating condition on the target host. For example, the target hostmay limit the amount of memory allocated to each virtual machine and theplanned virtual machine may be configured for more memory thanallocated. Additionally or alternatively, the presence of a parametererror may be determined based on an error in an action that depends onthe parameter. The presence of errors may be determined automatically(e.g., by a virtualization platform on the second computing device) ormanually by a user. As a specific example, a virtualization platform onhost 412 may determine that there is an error in the parameter “Disk”whose value is “C:\MyFile.ext” because the virtualization platform maynot be able to create a file named “C:\MyFile.ext” on the target host ormay not be able to locate a file with that name on the target host.

If a parameter error is detected, in act 308, a user may be alerted tothe presence of the error, in act 310 of process 300. A user may bealerted to the presence of the error based on output from thevirtualization platform on the second computing device. The user mayalso be prompted to provide input to address the error. The alert and/orprompt may be in any suitable format and may be presented to the user inany suitable way as the format of the alert and/or prompt and the way inwhich they may be presented to a user is not a limitation of the presentinvention.

In response to being alerted to the presence of an error in act 310, auser may address the error, in act 312 of process 300. A user mayaddress the error by providing input to the virtualization platform. Theinput provided by the user may indicate an action for the virtualizationplatform to take. For instance, the input may indicate for thevirtualization platform to abort the migration. Alternatively, the inputmay indicate how to address the error. For example, the input mayprovide information that may be used to correct the error and may, forexample, provide a value of a parameter that may be used to replace anexisting value of the parameter that may be incorrect and/or causing anerror.

In the above-mentioned scenario, if it is determined that there is anerror in the parameter “Disk” whose value is “C:\MyFile.ext” the usermay provide input indicating that the value of parameter “Disk” shouldbe set to “F:\MyFile.ext,” as shown in FIG. 4c . This may fix aconfiguration error that results from a difference in configuration ofsource host 400 and target host 410—the former may have a disk mapped asdrive C whereas the latter may have a disk mapped as drive F.

On the other hand, if it is determined in act 308, that there are noparameter errors, process 300 proceeds to acts 314-320 during whichresources may be allocated to the planned virtual machine. Though, itshould be recognized that in some embodiments, resources may not need tobe allocated to the planned virtual machine. Resources may be anysuitable resources and may be network, disk, or memory resources. In act314, resources may be allocated to the planned virtual machine. In somecases, resources may be allocated in response to user input. Resourcesmay be allocated automatically to the planned virtual machine by thevirtualization platform. Allocation of resources in this way may meanthat the virtualization platform will consider those resources allocatedwhen it considers allocation of resources to other virtual machines. Inthis way, the resources can be available to the virtual machine when itis converted from the planned virtual machine to a realized virtualmachine.

It should be noted that resources may be allocated to a planned virtualmachine even though a planned virtual machine may not use the resourcesallocated to it until it is converted to a realized virtual machine.This is one of the many aspects of planned virtual machines thatdifferentiate them from conventional approaches such as templatescompliant with the OVF standard—resources may not be allocated totemplates.

Resources may be allocated to the planned virtual machine based on arealized virtual machine. For instance, resources may be allocated tothe planned virtual machine based on the resources allocated to therealized virtual machine being migrated. As a specific example,resources allocated to the planned virtual machine on host 416, shown inFIG. 4d , may be allocated based on resources allocated to the realizedvirtual machine on source host 400. For instance, an amount of memory(e.g., 8 GB) may allocated to the planned virtual machine because thesame amount of memory is allocated to the realized virtual machine onsource host 400.

Additionally or alternatively, resources may be allocated to the plannedvirtual machine based on resources of the second computing device. Forinstance, the second computing device may have additional resources thatthe first computing device source host may not have and these additionalresources may be allocated to the planned virtual machine. For example,if the first computing device were to have an amount of memory (or diskspace) allocated to a realized virtual machine, a greater amount ofmemory (or disk space) on the second computing device may be allocatedto the planned virtual machine used for migrating the realized virtualmachine to the second computing device.

In some embodiments, resources may be sequentially allocated to theplanned virtual machine. One type of resource may be allocated to theplanned virtual machine before another type of resource is allocated tothe planned virtual machine. For instance, network resources may beallocated before disk and memory resources are allocated. Though, theorder in which types of resources are allocated may be any suitableorder, as the invention is not limited in this respect.

In the case that resources are sequentially allocated to a plannedvirtual machine in response to user input, user input may be providedbetween each allocation of a resource (or a type of resource). Forinstance, user input may be provided to indicate that network resourcesshould be allocated to the planned virtual machine and, subsequently,separate user input may be provided to indicate that disk and/or memoryresources should be allocated to the planned virtual machine.

A specific example of sequential resource allocation is illustrated inFIGS. 4b, 4c and 4d . Network resources are allocated to the plannedvirtual machine in FIG. 4b , next storage resources are allocated to theplanned virtual machine in FIG. 4c , and memory resources are allocatedto the planned virtual machine in FIG. 4 d.

Next, in act 316, it may be determined whether any errors occurred whileallocating resources to the planned virtual machine. The presence ofresource allocation errors may be determined in any suitable way and isnot a limitation on the present invention. For instance, the presence ofan allocation error may be determined if a virtualization platformattempts to allocate a resource to the planned virtual machine, but isunsuccessful. For instance, a virtual platform may attempt to allocate16 GB of memory to a virtual machine (e.g., because 16 GB were allocatedto an existing realized virtual machine that is being migrated), but 16GB of memory may not be available.

If a resource allocation error is detected, in act 316, a user may bealerted to the presence of the error, in act 318 of process 300. As inthe case of a parameter error, a user may be alerted to the presence ofthe error based on output from the virtualization platform on the secondcomputing device and may be prompted to provide input to address theerror. The alert and/or prompt may be in any suitable format and may bepresented to the user in any suitable way as the format of the alertand/or prompt and the way in which they may be presented to a user isnot a limitation of the present invention.

In response to being alerted to the presence of a resource allocationerror in act 318, a user may address the error, in act 320. A user mayaddress the error by providing input to the virtualization platform. Theinput provided by the user may indicate an action for the virtualizationplatform to take. For instance, the input may indicate to abort themigration. Alternatively, the input may indicate how to address theerror. In this case, the input may provide information that may be usedto correct the error and, for example, may provide a different resourceto allocate to the planned virtual machine. As another example, theinput may indicate to allocate a different amount of a resource. In theabove-mentioned memory example, a user may indicate to thevirtualization platform to allocate a smaller amount of memory (e.g., 8GB) than the amount of memory the platform attempted to allocate (e.g.,16 GB), which caused the resource allocation error.

On the other hand, if it is determined, in decision block 316, thatthere are no resource allocation errors, process 300 proceeds todecision block 322 during which it may be determined whether data may becopied during the migration. In decision block 322 it may be determinedwhether any data from a source host may be copied onto the target host(or from/to a backup source in a case of a backup/import migration).Such a determination, and/or the data copy process, may be performedusing techniques as are known in the art for virtual machine migration.For instance, in a case that a realized virtual machine is moved from asource host to a target host, it may be determined that data associatedwith the realized virtual machine may be copied to the target host.

Data associated with the realized virtual machine may be any of numeroustypes of data. It may be data accessed by, created by, and/or needed bythe planned virtual machine or the virtualization platform managing theplanned virtual machine. The data may be associated with a resource ofthe realized virtual machine. For instance, the data may be associatedwith a disk or a memory resource of the realized virtual machine.

The determination to copy data may be made in any of numerous ways. Forinstance, the determination may be made automatically. Alternatively,the determination may be based on user input.

If it is determined, in act 322, that data may be copied then data isautomatically copied in act 324, of process 300. Data may beautomatically copied by the virtualization platform and may be copiedfrom a source host to the target host. For example, as shown in FIG. 4e, data “ABC . . . ” may be copied from a disk of source host 400 (thedata copied from file C:\MyFile.ext) to the disk of target host 418 (thedata copied to file F:\MyFile.ext). Moreover, in the same example, data“123 . . . ” may be copied from the memory of source host 400 to thememory of target host 418.

After data is copied in act 324, or if it is determined in decisionblock 322 that no data needs to be copied, process 300 proceeds to act328 during which a planned virtual machine may be initialized. Theplanned virtual machine may be initialized by the virtualizationplatform managing the planned virtual machine and, in some instances,may be initialized in response to user input. Though, the plannedvirtual machine need not be initialized in response to user input as theinvention is not limited in this respect. For instance, the plannedvirtual machine may be initialized as soon as decision block 322 or act324 completes. It should be recognized that, in some instances, aplanned virtual machine may not be initialized. Whether a plannedvirtual machine is initialized may depend on the type of migrationoperation for which the planned virtual machine is being used. Forexample, a planned virtual machine may be initialized during livemigration, but may not be initialized during offline migration.

Initialization of a planned virtual machine may comprise any of numerousoperations. For instance, it may comprise initializing virtual devicesassociated with the planned virtual machine, which may also entailconfiguring physical devices that implement the functions of thosevirtual devices. For instance, a virtual network card may be initializedby connecting to a physical network device (e.g., a card or a switch).In this case, the virtual network card may open a port on the physicalnetwork device, open a connection to a network by using the deviceand/or perform any other suitable initialization operations. Though, thevirtual network card may not transmit any data until the planned virtualmachine is converted to a realized virtual machine. Additionally oralternatively, initializing a planned virtual machine may comprisechanging parameters of the planned virtual machine and/or changing theconfiguration parameters of the port to which the virtual network cardassociated with the planned virtual machine may be connected.

After a planned virtual machine is initialized in act 328 and regardlessof the manner in which the planned virtual machine is initialized,process 300 proceeds to act 330 during which it is determined if theplanned virtual machine will be converted to a realized virtual machine.The determination may be made based on user input or a virtualizationplatform and, in both cases, may be made based on any suitable criteriaas the invention is not limited in this respect.

If it is determined, in act 330, that the planned virtual machine willnot be converted to a realized virtual machine, process 300 completes.Any suitable disposition may be made of the virtual machine uponcompletion of process 300. For example, the planned virtual machine maybe deleted. On the other hand, if it is determined that the plannedvirtual machine may be converted to a realized virtual machine, theconversion occurs in acts 332-334 of process 300.

The conversion of a planned virtual machine into a new realized virtualmachine may be done in conjunction with deleting the existing realizedvirtual machine (e.g., on the source host) that was being migrated, inact 332. Though, it is not a requirement that the source realizedvirtual machine be deleted. It might, for example, be converted to aplanned virtual machine or made inoperative in other ways. However, inthe example described herein in which a migration is performed, thesource realized virtual machine is deleted. For instance, if a realizedvirtual machine was being moved (not copied) from a source host to atarget host, the realized virtual machine on the source host may bedeleted so that there are not two identical virtual machines executing.Though, it should be recognized that in some types of migrations (e.g.,copy and backup) the existing realized virtual machine may not bedeleted and may continue executing.

Deleting an existing realized virtual machine may comprise deleting allthe data structures and parameters representing the realized virtualmachine and adjusting the scheduling of processing on the virtualizationplatform supporting that realized virtual machine to allocate no furtherprocessing to the deleted virtual machine. Additionally, deleting anexisting realized virtual machine may comprise deleting any dataassociated with the realized virtual machine from memory and/or storageresources and may also comprise releasing any resources previouslyallocated to the realized virtual machine. For example, as shown in FIG.4f , parameters and data associated with the realized virtual machine onsource host 400 have been removed.

As part of converting the planned virtual machine to a new realizedvirtual machine, values of parameters of the planned virtual machine maybe changed in act 334 of process 300. Any of numerous parameter valuesmay be changed to convert the planned virtual machine to a realizedvirtual machine. For instance, values of parameters associated withaccess rights may be changed such that access rights to planned virtualmachine parameters are changed. In some instances, the resultant accessrights are such that parameters of the planned virtual machine may nolonger be accessed by a user and/or modified based on user input.Conversely, the access rights may be increased for a cluster controlleror other component that may interact with the virtual machine once it isrealized, but not when it is a planned virtual machine. As anotherexample, the class type associated with a planned virtual machine may beset to be the class type associated with a realized virtual machine. Atthis point the virtualization platform may interact with the newrealized virtual machine as a realized virtual machine and may no longerrecognize or keep track of a planned virtual machine associated with themigration. Though, the above examples are merely illustrative and anyother parameters may be changed as necessary.

Regardless of what parameter values are changed and what they may bechanged to, the new realized virtual machine may be started in act 336and the migration process 300 completes. From this point onward, the newrealized virtual machine may be managed by the virtualization platform,including interacting with other components of a computer system, as anyother realized virtual machine. The new realized virtual machine mayexecute any suitable applications and, if necessary, may be subject tofuture migration operations.

It should be recognized that process 300 is merely illustrative and maybe modified in any of numerous ways. For example, though specific acts(e.g., act 330) were described as occurring in response to user input,any act in process 300 may have occurred in response to user input ormay have been automatically performed by the virtualization platformwithout any user input. In the case that an act occurs in response touser input, user input may need to be received before process 300proceeds to a subsequent act or decision block. As another example, insome embodiments, various acts of process 300 may not be performed. Forinstance, though FIG. 3a shows that allocation of resources (acts314-320) occurs after the configuration is validated (acts 308-312), insome embodiments, resources may not need to be allocated. Similarly, aplanned virtual machine (act 328) may not need to be initialized (e.g.,offline migration). In addition, the order in which acts may occur maybe modified. For instance, the existing realized virtual machine may bedeleted after the new realized virtual machine is started. In fact, someacts of the process may occur in parallel rather than sequentially. Forinstance, acts 332-336 for converting a planned virtual machine to arealized virtual machine may occur in parallel.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment500 on which the invention may be implemented. The computing systemenvironment 500 is only one example of a suitable computing environmentand is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use orfunctionality of the invention. Neither should the computing environment500 be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating toany one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplarycomputing environment 500.

The invention is operational with numerous other general purpose orspecial purpose computing system environments or configurations.Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/orconfigurations that may be suitable for use with the invention include,but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-heldor laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems,set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs,minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environmentsthat include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.

The computing environment may execute computer-executable instructions,such as program modules. Generally, program modules include routines,programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that performparticular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Theinvention may also be practiced in distributed computing environmentswhere tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linkedthrough a communications network. In a distributed computingenvironment, program modules may be located in both local and remotecomputer storage media including memory storage devices.

With reference to FIG. 5, an exemplary system for implementing theinvention includes a general purpose computing device in the form of acomputer 510. Components of computer 510 may include, but are notlimited to, a processing unit 520, a system memory 530, and a system bus521 that couples various system components including the system memoryto the processing unit 520. The system bus 521 may be any of severaltypes of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, aperipheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of busarchitectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architecturesinclude Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro ChannelArchitecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video ElectronicsStandards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.

Computer 510 typically includes a variety of computer readable media.Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessedby computer 510 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media,removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and notlimitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage mediaand communication media. Computer storage media includes both volatileand nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in anymethod or technology for storage of information such as computerreadable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data.Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM,EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or any other medium which can be used to store the desired informationand which can accessed by computer 510. Communication media typicallyembodies computer readable instructions, data structures, programmodules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier waveor other transport mechanism and includes any information deliverymedia. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one ormore of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encodeinformation in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation,communication media includes wired media such as a wired network ordirect-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF,infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of the any of the aboveshould also be included within the scope of computer readable media.

The system memory 530 includes computer storage media in the form ofvolatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 531and random access memory (RAM) 532. A basic input/output system 533(BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer informationbetween elements within computer 510, such as during start-up, istypically stored in ROM 531. RAM 532 typically contains data and/orprogram modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presentlybeing operated on by processing unit 520. By way of example, and notlimitation, FIG. 5 illustrates operating system 534, applicationprograms 535, other program modules 536, and program data 537.

The computer 510 may also include other removable/non-removable,volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,FIG. 5 illustrates a hard disk drive 541 that reads from or writes tonon-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive 551that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk 552,and an optical disk drive 555 that reads from or writes to a removable,nonvolatile optical disk 556 such as a CD ROM or other optical media.Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storagemedia that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include,but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards,digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solidstate ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive 541 is typically connectedto the system bus 521 through a non-removable memory interface such asinterface 540, and magnetic disk drive 551 and optical disk drive 555are typically connected to the system bus 521 by a removable memoryinterface, such as interface 550.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed aboveand illustrated in FIG. 5, provide storage of computer readableinstructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputer 510. In FIG. 5, for example, hard disk drive 541 is illustratedas storing operating system 544, application programs 545, other programmodules 546, and program data 547. Note that these components can eitherbe the same as or different from operating system 534, applicationprograms 535, other program modules 536, and program data 537. Operatingsystem 544, application programs 545, other program modules 546, andprogram data 547 are given different numbers here to illustrate that, ata minimum, they are different copies. A user may enter commands andinformation into the computer 510 through input devices such as akeyboard 562 and pointing device 561, commonly referred to as a mouse,trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include amicrophone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like.These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit520 through a user input interface 560 that is coupled to the systembus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such asa parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor591 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus521 via an interface, such as a video interface 590. In addition to themonitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices suchas speakers 597 and printer 596, which may be connected through anoutput peripheral interface 595.

The computer 510 may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer580. The remote computer 580 may be a personal computer, a server, arouter, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, andtypically includes many or all of the elements described above relativeto the computer 510, although only a memory storage device 581 has beenillustrated in FIG. 5. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 5include a local area network (LAN) 571 and a wide area network (WAN)573, but may also include other networks. Such networking environmentsare commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranetsand the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 510 is connectedto the LAN 571 through a network interface or adapter 570. When used ina WAN networking environment, the computer 510 typically includes amodem 572 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN573, such as the Internet. The modem 572, which may be internal orexternal, may be connected to the system bus 521 via the user inputinterface 560, or other appropriate mechanism. In a networkedenvironment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 510, orportions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. Byway of example, and not limitation, FIG. 5 illustrates remoteapplication programs 585 as residing on memory device 581. It will beappreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and othermeans of establishing a communications link between the computers may beused.

Having thus described several aspects of at least one embodiment of thisinvention, it is to be appreciated that various alterations,modifications, and improvements will readily occur to those skilled inthe art.

Such alterations, modifications, and improvements are intended to bepart of this disclosure, and are intended to be within the spirit andscope of the invention. Accordingly, the foregoing description anddrawings are by way of example only.

The above-described embodiments of the present invention can beimplemented in any of numerous ways. For example, the embodiments may beimplemented using hardware, software or a combination thereof. Whenimplemented in software, the software code can be executed on anysuitable processor or collection of processors, whether provided in asingle computer or distributed among multiple computers. Such processorsmay be implemented as integrated circuits, with one or more processorsin an integrated circuit component. Though, a processor may beimplemented using circuitry in any suitable format.

Further, it should be appreciated that a computer may be embodied in anyof a number of forms, such as a rack-mounted computer, a desktopcomputer, a laptop computer, or a tablet computer. Additionally, acomputer may be embedded in a device not generally regarded as acomputer but with suitable processing capabilities, including a PersonalDigital Assistant (PDA), a smart phone or any other suitable portable orfixed electronic device.

Also, a computer may have one or more input and output devices. Thesedevices can be used, among other things, to present a user interface.Examples of output devices that can be used to provide a user interfaceinclude printers or display screens for visual presentation of outputand speakers or other sound generating devices for audible presentationof output. Examples of input devices that can be used for a userinterface include keyboards, and pointing devices, such as mice, touchpads, and digitizing tablets. As another example, a computer may receiveinput information through speech recognition or in other audible format.

Such computers may be interconnected by one or more networks in anysuitable form, including as a local area network or a wide area network,such as an enterprise network or the Internet. Such networks may bebased on any suitable technology and may operate according to anysuitable protocol and may include wireless networks, wired networks orfiber optic networks.

Also, the various methods or processes outlined herein may be coded assoftware that is executable on one or more processors that employ anyone of a variety of operating systems or platforms. Additionally, suchsoftware may be written using any of a number of suitable programminglanguages and/or programming or scripting tools, and also may becompiled as executable machine language code or intermediate code thatis executed on a framework or virtual machine.

In this respect, the invention may be embodied as a computer readablestorage medium (or multiple computer readable media) (e.g., a computermemory, one or more floppy discs, compact discs (CD), optical discs,digital video disks (DVD), magnetic tapes, flash memories, circuitconfigurations in Field Programmable Gate Arrays or other semiconductordevices, or other tangible computer storage medium) encoded with one ormore programs that, when executed on one or more computers or otherprocessors, perform methods that implement the various embodiments ofthe invention discussed above. As is apparent from the foregoingexamples, a computer readable storage medium may retain information fora sufficient time to provide computer-executable instructions in anon-transitory form. Such a computer readable storage medium or mediacan be transportable, such that the program or programs stored thereoncan be loaded onto one or more different computers or other processorsto implement various aspects of the present invention as discussedabove. As used herein, the term “computer-readable storage medium”encompasses only a computer-readable medium that can be considered to bea manufacture (i.e., article of manufacture) or a machine. Alternativelyor additionally, the invention may be embodied as a computer readablemedium other than a computer-readable storage medium, such as apropagating signal.

The terms “program” or “software” are used herein in a generic sense torefer to any type of computer code or set of computer-executableinstructions that can be employed to program a computer or otherprocessor to implement various aspects of the present invention asdiscussed above. Additionally, it should be appreciated that accordingto one aspect of this embodiment, one or more computer programs thatwhen executed perform methods of the present invention need not resideon a single computer or processor, but may be distributed in a modularfashion amongst a number of different computers or processors toimplement various aspects of the present invention.

Computer-executable instructions may be in many forms, such as programmodules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally,program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. Typically the functionality of the program modulesmay be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.

Also, data structures may be stored in computer-readable media in anysuitable form. For simplicity of illustration, data structures may beshown to have fields that are related through location in the datastructure. Such relationships may likewise be achieved by assigningstorage for the fields with locations in a computer-readable medium thatconveys relationship between the fields. However, any suitable mechanismmay be used to establish a relationship between information in fields ofa data structure, including through the use of pointers, tags or othermechanisms that establish relationship between data elements.

Various aspects of the present invention may be used alone, incombination, or in a variety of arrangements not specifically discussedin the embodiments described in the foregoing and is therefore notlimited in its application to the details and arrangement of componentsset forth in the foregoing description or illustrated in the drawings.For example, aspects described in one embodiment may be combined in anymanner with aspects described in other embodiments.

Also, the invention may be embodied as a method, of which an example hasbeen provided. The acts performed as part of the method may be orderedin any suitable way. Accordingly, embodiments may be constructed inwhich acts are performed in an order different than illustrated, whichmay include performing some acts simultaneously, even though shown assequential acts in illustrative embodiments.

Use of ordinal terms such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., in theclaims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote anypriority, precedence, or order of one claim element over another or thetemporal order in which acts of a method are performed, but are usedmerely as labels to distinguish one claim element having a certain namefrom another element having a same name (but for use of the ordinalterm) to distinguish the claim elements.

Also, the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose ofdescription and should not be regarded as limiting. The use of“including,” “comprising,” or “having,” “containing,” “involving,” andvariations thereof herein, is meant to encompass the items listedthereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items.

What is claimed is:
 1. A hardware storage apparatus comprising: avirtualization hypervisor, wherein the virtualization platform code,when executed by a processor of a computing device: manages execution ofa virtual machine (VM), the managing including performing machinevirtualization for VMs, the machine virtualization including providingprocessor cycles to execute the VMs and allocating hardware resources ofthe computing device to the VMs, the machine virtualization causing theVMs, while being executed by the virtualization hypervisor, to functionas physical computers with respect to guest software executing on theVMs; and manages a planned virtual machine (PVM), wherein the PVMcomprises a VM configuration module storing configuration values of thePVM, the managing the PVM including: allocating an amount of a hardwareresource of the computing device for the PVM according to theconfiguration values, the allocating comprising reserving the amount ofthe hardware resource for only the PVM such that, upon the allocating,the amount of the hardware resource becomes unavailable to be allocatedto other PVMs and/or VMs and the amount of the hardware resource isguaranteed to be available to a new VM to be formed from the PVM;receiving updates from a source other than the virtualization hypervisorand in response updating the configuration values; based on the updatedconfiguration values, adjusting the amount of the hardware resourceallocated for the PVM according to the updated configuration values; andforming a new VM, the new VM having the adjusted amount of the hardwareresource allocated for the PVM, and executing the new VM by providingprocessor cycles to the new VM.
 2. A hardware storage apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein the PVM is a type of object managed by thevirtualization hypervisor that cannot be allocated processor cycles. 3.A hardware storage apparatus according to claim 2, the managing the PVMfurther including, before forming the new VM, allocating memory for thePVM and populating the memory with data from memory of another VM,wherein the resource comprises the memory.
 4. A hardware storageapparatus according to claim 1, wherein the source comprises anothercomputing device, and wherein the managing the PVM further comprisesproviding access to the PVM to the other computing device.
 5. A hardwarestorage apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the managing the PVMfurther comprises, prior to generating the new VM, generating a virtualnetwork interface for the PVM, wherein, prior to generating the new VMthe virtual network interface opens a port on a physical networkinterface of the computing device and/or opens a network connectionusing the physical network interface.
 6. A hardware storage apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein the PVM and the new VM are differentobjects concurrently managed by the virtualization hypervisor code whilegenerating the new VM.
 7. A method performed by a computing devicecomprising processing hardware and storage hardware, the methodcomprising: executing a virtual machine manager by the processinghardware; the virtual machine manager providing machine virtualizationto execute virtual machines (VMs) by the virtual machine manager;managing a planned virtual machine (PVM) by the virtual machine manager,the PVM comprising a data structure including configuration settings forspecifying amounts of respective hardware resources to be used by a newVM to be formed by converting the PVM to the VM, the managing the PVMcomprising: determining that there is an insufficient amount of a firsthardware resource available on the computing device to satisfy a firstamount specified by a second configuration setting, wherein as long asthe first configuration setting cannot be satisfied a new VM cannot berealized from the PVM; after the determining, and while there is stillan insufficient amount of the first hardware to satisfy the secondconfiguration setting, allocating a second amount of a second hardwareresource according to a second amount specified by a secondconfiguration setting, the allocating the second amount comprisingreserving the second amount of the second resource for the PVM such thatthe second amount of the second hardware resource is guaranteed to beavailable for the new VM when realized from the PVM; updating theconfiguration settings according to input received by the virtualmachine manager, the updating comprising assigning a third amount to thefirst configuration setting according to the input, the input havingbeen requested based on the determining; and allocating the third amountof the first hardware resource to the PVM according to the third amountspecified by the first configuration setting, the allocating thirdamount comprising reserving the third amount of the first hardwareresource for the PVM such that the allocated third amount of the firsthardware resource is guaranteed to be available for the new VM when thenew VM is realized from the PVM.
 8. A method according to claim 7,wherein the second hardware resource comprises memory, the methodfurther comprising allocating memory for the PVM according to theconfiguration settings, and syncing the memory from the memory of anexecuting VM while first configuration setting is incapable of beingsatisfied.
 9. A method according to claim 8, wherein the PVM does notcomprise a VM that is in the process of being generated by the virtualmachine manager and the virtual machine manager is incapable ofexecuting the PVM.
 10. A method according to claim 7, wherein the inputcomprises a user input inputted by a user interacting with the virtualmachine manager or an input received via a network from a virtualizationcontroller or another virtual machine manager executing on anothercomputing device, the input received while the PVM is a target of a VMmigration migrating a source VM.
 11. A method according to claim 7,further comprising providing interactive access to the PVM after thehardware resources have been allocated and before generating a new VMfrom the PVM.
 12. A method according to claim 7, further comprisinginitializing the PVM according to configuration information obtainedfrom an executing VM.
 13. A computing device comprising: storagehardware and processing hardware configured to execute a virtualizationhypervisor that recognizes two types of virtual machine (VM) objects, afirst recognized type of VM object comprising realized executable VMs, asecond type of recognized VM object comprising planned VMs that are notconfigured to be executed by the virtualization hypervisor and thevirtualization hypervisor is not configured to execute the second typeof recognized VM object, wherein the virtualization hypervisor managesinstances of the first type of VM object by providing machinevirtualization that includes coordinating use of the processing hardwareby the instances of the first type of VM object, and wherein thevirtualization hypervisor manages instances of the second type of VMobject by maintaining corresponding VM configuration settings andallocating hardware resources of the computing device to the instancesof the second type of VM object, wherein the machine virtualizationprovides guest operating systems on the realized executable VMs withvirtualized access to processing hardware, storage hardware, andnetworking hardware of the computing device.
 14. A computing deviceaccording to claim 13, wherein the virtualization hypervisor generates anew instance of the first type of VM object according to an instance ofthe second type of VM object, and wherein a hardware resource allocatedto the instance of the second type of VM object is transferred to thenew instance of the first type of VM object which uses the transferredhardware resource while being executed by the virtualization hypervisor.15. A computing device according to claim 14, wherein the virtualizationhypervisor automatically changes a configuration setting of the PVM toenable the generating the new instance of the first type of VM object.16. A computing device according to claim 13, wherein the virtualizationhypervisor receives a communication from a virtualization controllerexecuting on another computing device or from a virtualizationhypervisor on another computing device, and in response automaticallygenerates an instance of the second type of VM object.
 17. A computingdevice according to claim 13, wherein the virtualization hypervisorconfigures an instance of the second type of VM object based onconfiguration data of an instance of the first type of VM object.
 18. Acomputing device according to claim 13, wherein the virtualizationhypervisor performs configuration validation for instances of the secondtype of VM objects, and wherein the virtualization hypervisor promptsfor user interaction with an instance of the second type of VM objectbased on (i) a determination of a corresponding invalid configurationsetting and/or (ii) a determination of a resource allocation problem.